Thursday, March 3, 2011

Demonstrating just how quickly the world's power brokers can move when their own interests are threatened, the ICC has today announced an investigation of war crimes in Libya.

Never mind the fact that Robert Mugabe has been doing the same things in Zimbabwe for 30 years, never mind the fact that many of the actions of the USA and its NATO lackeys in Afghanistan have obviously fulfilled the definition of war crimes, (hello, bombing innocent civilians, over and over, hello?), the war in Libya has threatened the profits of the high and mighty, and so the ICC has moved within 72 hours of the charges being referred to it. This is the same ICC that usually takes years to do anything.

Make no mistake, dear reader, I have no affection whatsoever for Gaddafi. I make no excuses for his actions, and he certainly is guilty of terrible crimes against humanity. But the obviousness of such painfully selective enforcement of international law is simply breath-taking.

Ahhh, but oil exports are threatened, and we cannot have that. Seething hordes of Muslim refugees are threatening the precious "cultural integrity" of a blatantly anti-Muslim Europe, and we cannot have that.

And the usual Hawks here in the USA are madly rattling the sabre, urging military intervention, as though the US military had anything left to intervene with. But practical considerations never prevented US Conservatives from urging military action. After all, they never met a war they didn't love. And hey, there's all that lovely oil for their corporate masters to grab control of. And so, once again, the US military must play the role of mercenaries for the great international corporations.

Meanwhile, here at home, Conservatives are slashing budgets to the bone, cutting programs for children, seniors, the poor, in short everyone who isn't a rich shareholder. Somehow, when it comes to anything but the military or security, there's no money! there's no money! there's no money! But when it's a war at issue, they never even mention what it will cost. When there's a war to be had, with all those rich profits for the defense contractors, then pay-as-you-go ideas and fiscal conservatism are cast aside without a second thought.